How dependent on Taiwan is the AI ecosystem? – Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI

OpenAI Chief Scientist

[DwarkeshPatel]

Tsunamis a way to ask about Chinese invasion folks

[davidhawley]

I think that some Taiwanese fabs have started production in Japan, ahead of the Taiwanese fabs in the US.

[MINRITY-REPRT]

Taiwanese Semiconductor have just about completed their Mega facilities in Arizona though they are one or two years behind the predicted 2024 opening. Likewise Intel's 20 billion dollar semiconductor plant in Ohio will be a year late, opening in 2026 rather than 2025. One of the major motivating factors in building these two semiconductor plants on US soil is the vulnerability of TS in Taiwan.

[pepleatherlab]

Three chip plants still being built in the USA. Wealth always has contingencies. When they're done the question becomes about incentive. Will USA defend Taiwan if the incentive is gone? The CCP thinks 'No.' Something to consider.

[daviddelaney]

"Merely a setback" and "Wealth always has contingencies" are interesting statements. Implicit in these notions is the assumption that existing suppliers can afford to absorb such an event as a matter of routine business. The lack of redundancy of operations is a substandard DR solution that can become an opportunity for a competitor.

[willsmith]

The tsunami would consist of Chinese troops

[DemonSliime]

Four years ago was the 3080 ti and 3090 ti. Still top tier powerful gpus.

[machinech]

The solution to that issue is already underway.

[royalsuperperson]

Intel is scaling up brand-new fab facilities outside Columbus Ohio and is opening them up to producing chips for other companies. I hope it does well cuz I've invested in that, it'll take a good 6 years at least for it to scale up, but it's basically government-backed at this point, they just received like $11 billion from the CHIPS act to support the effort.

[jakejohnson]

Absolutely nobody wants to buy 4 year old GPUs when everyone is trying to buy next years GPUs.

[doodlePimp]

The gear they use to produce the chips is made in Europe so not that vulnerable at all. Especially not if the guys from Taiwan survive the tsunami.

[first-thoughtgiver-of-will]

the greater implications would be to Taiwan and democratic/free market efforts in Asia.

[cropcircler]

Like a tsunami 🙄. Is he afraid of a Chinese ban?

[Adhil_parammel]

Even china is behind 30 years.taiwan wisdom they gained from trail and error is huge, that can only gained by mass oppertunity to do more trail and error aka huge production.

[tylerclayton]

Intel is actually almost caught up with TSMC. Intel is currently manufacturing 2nm chips for their 15th gen processors. TSMC is also on 2nm. But by 2026 intel will surpass TSMC. By then intel will be manufacturing 0.5 nm chips while TSMC will still be on 1 nm

So intel is no longer a few years behind TSMC. They’re fully caught up. Intel just has to increase manufacturing capacity

[AndarManik]

Can someone explain the infrastructural implication for why Taiwan getting destroyed would effect compute for AI? What stopping say the US or china from starting their own fab. I thought the main reason Taiwan is known for these fans is cause there is no competitor. Given a situation Taiwan collapses there doesn’t seem to be the same incentives as before and thus other place would be incentivized to build fabs.

[xerath-jdrl]

Nope, I must say there will be a very big difference, and all progress will be much slower. Technical personnel in other regions do not agree with the system of working more than 16 hours a day, but Taiwan, especially TSMC, is willing. TSMC's achievements are the result of the accumulation of Taiwanese people's liver index.

[briancase]

The Nvidia GPU architecture is neither the only one nor is it the best one. It's just that there's an installed base of expertise with Nvidia's software architecture. There are better alternatives. And they will eventually win. Even Nvidia will eventually move.

[Dr_Larken]

Tsunami! Du du det du… screw it if you know you know, if you dont then wait for the bass drop!

[Greybeardmedic]

I wonder if we are just going to slowly move the industries and people OUT of Taiwan...